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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 1, No. 3. March 23, 1938

The Loyalist Strategists

The Loyalist Strategists.

We agreed that all this meant much, but pointed out the importance of able leadership.

"The Loyalist strategists are as good as the others—in fact better." They find out first whether it's Italians or Moors in the opposite trenches and then play them suitable music to wake them up. If it's Moors they play Moorish folk songs; if it's Italians they play the latest dance hits from Rome. Make 'em properly home-sick. Then they ask them if they know why they are fighting, and tell them a few home truths, the Moors about Franco and the Italians about Mussolini. Then they urge them to desert—to shoot their officers if that's necessary to enable them to do so."

"Does it ever work?"

"I'll say. On Brunete two battalions shot their officers and deserted to the Government lines. D'you know there were 80,000 Italians advancing on Guadalahara in their biggest push so far? They were called 'Mussolini's Own.' 'The Black Arrows, "The Invincibles,' and other names like that. We pushed them back forty miles in one day, and they lost more men in that battle than they lost in the whole of the Abysslnian campaign. We took over 1,000 prisoners. Mass, was so disturbed that he cancelled his Libya trip and went back home."